Emily Blunt tried to combine strength and fragility in her latest role.

The British actress will soon be seen in Sicario playing an FBI agent alongside Josh Brolin and Benicio del Toro. The 32-year-old did plenty of research for the role to make sure she fully understood what goes into being a woman in a male-dominated world.

“I think he [director Denis Villeneuve] wanted a mix of strength and fragility at the same time,” she told Empire magazine. “The female cops and FBI agents surprised me. I was very taken aback by how normal and slight some of them were. They were tough but kind of not tough. Kind of lonely, kind of shy… I asked them how their work affects their marriage, their children, their sleep, what frightens them, I wanted to know everything.”

Emily plays Kate, who is enlisted by the government to join a task force and identify an anonymous drug lord. The role required the star to work with guns and while she has used weapons for other projects, this time around it was an altogether different experience.

“I’ve worked with guns before, but this was slightly different,” she said. “For me, the beauty of learning about SWAT teams was in the choreography of those assaults they do: how tactical they are, how restrained and composed they are and how meticulously they’re planned. The physicality of what they do gave me even more insight into the character.”

Emily first came to people’s attention in 2006 film The Devil Wears Prada. She’s also turned her hand to period drama, comedy and action and while the star is returning to the latter genre in Sicario, she’s keen to keep her career as varied as possible.

“I like the fact that those kind of [action] roles for women are becoming less of an anomaly, and something more that they are embracing now,” she added. “So it’s not that I search them out, it’s just that since Edge of Tomorrow I have been sent a lot of those kind of roles. I haven’t really done any of them because I don’t want to start pigeon-holing myself.”